


in this life, and the next

by srmiller



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Canarrow, Drabble, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 21:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6167386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srmiller/pseuds/srmiller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a soul passes on after the body has failed there is no limit to how far a person could see, how much a person cold know, and in death Sara could see every life she had lived, every life she would live, and all the universes in which she’d been born at a different time, made different choices. A vastness of what-ifs which could keep her occupied for millennia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in this life, and the next

When a soul passes on after the body has failed there is no limit to how far a person can see, how much a person can know, and in death Sara could see every life she had lived, every life she would live, and all the universes in which she’d been born at a different time, made different choices. A vastness of what-ifs which could keep her occupied for millennia.

Her father was there, in those lives she could have lived, as was Laurel. They were siblings, cousins, friends…there was one universe where Laurel was the mother and Quentin was the son and that had been a story to tell. They weren’t always there though, there were lives in which neither father nor sister existed.

But there was always Oliver.

There were worlds in which she let herself love him, and he loved her back. A version of them lived happily in the city, not quite married but always committed to each other. More than once they’d gotten a house in the suburbs, had children with blonde hair and blue eyes and fell asleep with a baby monitor the bedside table.

Sara had watched, fascinated and amused, by the version of herself in hot-roller curls and Oliver in an army uniform. In that world they both danced while sneaking sips from a flask and promised to find their way back to each other when the war was over. She’d been a healer and he’d been a reluctant fighter who didn’t make it home.

There were versions of them which got to be happy without the scars or the nightmares but most of the worlds she and Oliver were born to were filled with blood and anger and the endless fighting.

Sara didn’t know if the universe was this hard on other souls, or if she and Oliver were somehow different. She chose to think it was because they were strong enough to bear the weight of it where others might not be, but she knew the truth was they were strongest when they had each other.

They were almost always lovers, sometimes friends, one universe had them as combatants but even in such a world they put aside their differences to fight someone who posed a more dangerous threat.

Soul mates.

She’d never used the phrase when she’d been alive in Starling City: a connection she’d told Thea, history she’d explained to Felicity, chemistry she’d said with an apology to Laurel. But here, in the place where everything happened at once, soul mates was the only thing which made sense.

I guess some things never change. You and her. Always and forever.

Sara wanted to laugh at herself, at how naive she’d been when all she’d known was the then and now, it had never been Oliver and Laurel.

Sara had seen Laurel in enough universes to know it was Tommy her sister would always find. It didn’t happen as often as Sara found Oliver, but it occurred frequently enough Sara wished she’d known Laurel when she was with Tommy to see what that kind of connection looked like from the outside.

And now she was back, back from the dead, back from the place where she’d known everything and seen everything and it was difficult to remember sometimes which life she was in.

This was not the universe where Oliver had proposed to her spontaneously while they welcomed the new year with music and champagne. This was not the life where she’d felt the baby she and Oliver had made growing inside her. This was not the world in which Oliver was hers.

But he’d come for her anyway, her soul mate.

He’d reached into the in-between, with the help of her sister, to pull Sara out of the darkness and give her body back its soul and she couldn’t tell him the only reason he’d been able to do it was because in every version of themselves they saved each other. Only a connection like theirs could survive such a trial.

Sara watched Oliver kiss Felicity goodbye and pressed a closed fist to her heart.

She couldn’t bemoan Oliver his happiness in this world, if she hadn’t known about the one where they were werewolves running together beneath a full moon she wouldn’t have thought anything of the casual display of affection.

But she did and she wasn’t sure how to look at him as the girl who had died, the girl who had walked away for his own good because she hadn’t known what else to do. If he thought she was acting different he’d likely just written it off as a symptom of being brought back from the dead, and he wasn’t wrong.

She had a thousand lives worth of loving him inside her and the rage of bloodlust in her veins.

Next life, she told herself. The next life would be easier, when she didn’t know all death had shown her. But for this one, for this one she’d learn to be happy for Oliver and the love of this life.

The next one would hers.


End file.
